Beautiful Dawn: Revisited
by Passionworks
Summary: Rewritten version of Azula Trilogy part two. Three years into her lifelong prison sentence, Firelord Ozai's prophecy returns to haunt Princess Azula in a way she never thought possible. After suffering brutal revenge from a one-time acquaintance, Azula's world is tilt on an entirely new axis when an unexpected life enters her own: someone who just might help her find redemption...
1. Prologue

**Author's Note: It never ceases to amaze me the constant interest people have in my old fic, 'Beautiful Dawn.' I get a least one favorite on it a week, it seems like. Going back and rereading it now, I feel like there is so much potential to it. My style is so much better today, and the story, I believe, needs to be retold in a different tone. I think I'll keep the old one up for sentimentality, though, so don't worry about it going away!**

**This rewritten version will omit all song lyrics, as well as my outward, italicized thoughts from Azula's mind. I feel the lyrics, though wonderful, distract from the professionalism, and the unity of the story. Only having some chapters be crowned by lyrics and others not bothers me a lot now. And as for the emotional whiplash of Azula's thoughts, they just don't mirror in with my modern, polished writing style. I mean, I can place in thoughts now and then, but not after every little sentence! It seems, what's the word… overdone, I guess now. Also, so, so, so many of the conversations will be altered. My conversational tenors in my work back then were extremely forced, and reading them again and again, I find that they are OOC –_very _OOC. In other words, this whole story is going to be tilt on an entirely new axis!**

**I hope I can make the same impact now as I did back in 2009! Please, fans new and old: review, favorite, subscribe, or whatever! The support I had back in the day will definitely keep me going today!**

**Updates/review replies/PMs may come slow because of very severe left/right carpal tunnel syndrome and equally severe left/right De Quervain's tendinitis. These syndromes have ravaged my hands, leaving me forever numb and forever without the fine motor skills I once took for granted. Typing is utter hell for me, as is picking up a pencil and scribbling notes. So, please be patient with me! I'll try my best!**

Beautiful Dawn: Revisited

By: Passionworks

Prologue

The dispossessed princess, Azula's amber eyes squeezed shut as the shrill sound of clanking metal hit her eardrums. Pipes which encircled the ceiling of her Boiling Rock prison cell were clogged and rusted, and screamed as begrimed water made its attempt to pass through them.

She detested the noise, much like she detested the irritating sound of droplets leaking from the hairline chinks in her black, charred walls. The paint inside her institutional cell was, at one point before her stay, a toned gray, but much of it had chipped and burned to ashen black after her tormented spells of cerulean insanity.

Insane. That was what Princess Azula was now. Crippled by the instability of her devastated mind. She was a woman clothed in meager, blood-patched rags torn at the seam lines; she was a woman with poor hair, still somehow split and jagged from the scissor blades that sliced through it when she had once made the attempt to care for herself.

As the reverberations distressed her, Azula remembered vividly that fateful evening, when the sky had faded from blue to red and Sozin's Comet erected from the horizon line. She had banished her people, from the poorest servant girl to the highest Imperial Guardsman, fearing from them their rebellion and retribution. The prospect of choking, the certainty of an assassination, the lack of confidence in her ability to lead a nation…

The cold blow of air fluttered from one of the pipes above her, and speckles of dust spilled from its mouth and dotted the crackled stone floor. She shivered, and speculated just how warm it was outside this unornamented dungeon. She longed for the sun to touch and tan her pastel skin, to heat her heart. But no stone or brick could let in the rays of Agni, no matter what the legends had taught her in her youth.

This misery she felt was, in part, the waterbender's fault. The waterbender stole away her freedom and rights to the crown with just a single motion. The waterbender froze her inside a capsule of ice, like a fetus inside a womb, and chained her to the drain gratings below the coronation temple. The waterbender healed her surely doomed brother and brought him to his feet. The waterbender made Zuko's succession to the throne possible.

How many years had it been now since the comet, she wondered as yet another stream of frigid air filtered her cell. How many years had it been since she had seen the callous sapphire eyes of the waterbender? She did not know. She had stopped counting the passing days within the first month of her stay, finding it a pointless endeavor.

A click from her cell door disrupted Azula's queries. She assumed it was the ruthless warden awarding her an extra tray of dry rice, a crust of bread, and the rare cup of tepid tea, but it had only been hours, she guessed, since her dinnertime meal (that she did not eat, of course, fearing poison). Perhaps he came to taunt her with jives of peace again, came to spit on her face and label her the failure he and the rest of the world saw her as.

But when the door creaked to the side, Azula realized the form was not that of the warden's. The figure, cast against the lighting from the outside, was thin, but still of a masculine build, draped in a silken ruby robe. He stepped forward and drew himself away from the beam behind him.

"Azula," he said, his features becoming clear to the princess. "It's me. Zuko."

Azula's eyes automatically darted to the finely-dressed Firelord's singed left eye, which was nothing more than a glazed slit. His brow was low and his lips were set in a frown which, to the princess, read frustration.

"It's been three years to the day since your sentence," he reported abruptly, his expression bleeding from disappointment to awe at the time. "You're seventeen now."

Azula rolled her own eyes, which were drawn and bloodshot, and scowled at his admission. Musing on it to herself, she was surprised to know she was above the marrying age, an adult by her nation's standards, but, yet unable to determine her own destiny. She was bound to the path drawn by her crimes and the lifelong sentence attached to them.

Zuko continued, his voice brightening, "So much has happened to the world in the three years you've been imprisoned. Water and earthbenders have rebuilt the forests our war burned down, Ba Sing Se's wall has been restructured and their utopian society has crumbled, and Father's long and enduring trial just finished not a month ago. Hope is alive in all the people. Children are being born into a world without war for the first time in a century."

The princess scoffed, her brother's elation barely grazing her. She twisted a finger through a loose tress of her frazzled raven hair, letting it then fall to her bosom. Shifting her position against the furthermost wall in the cage, she waited for Zuko to carry on, as she sensed that he had more to say.

"You're not going to say anything?" he asked, prodding her emotions. "Spirits, Azula, what happened to your fire in life?"

Azula responded with a weary sigh, a weak sickness in her chest rattling her voice.

Zuko inquired, "What's become of you? Where's that fighting spark in you that battled it out for the crown just three years ago? Where's the sister I knew and loved once?"

She said not one word to this, though she felt at her breast a twinge of regret for losing her vigorous side. She still held bitterness, resentment, hatred, but most of her spirited emotions were bottled up inside. Her will and determination had faded away, and morphed into melancholy and grief. And pity too, for herself and her father, whose own goals for her were far from being fulfilled.

"_I need a suitor… an heir to the throne," _he had said once. _"That's all I ask of you…"_

"I know you're still upset over your defeat during Sozin's Comet," Zuko said, distracting Azula from Ozai's prophecy, "and I know it'll be difficult to gain your forgiveness, but I have a feeling you'll come around."

Both siblings looked up; the jiggling pipes above bellowed and groaned as a rat skittered along their tops. It sniffed at the rust before jumping into one of the sizable holes in the scorched wall.

Zuko peered down. "And I have good news for you," he informed. He turned to the door and gestured briefly. Azula, curious, arched her neck and examined what little she could see of the hallway. A second figure, a female, entered, dressed in a grayed cloak with a hood. Her footsteps were cautious and deliberate as she took her place next to Zuko. Even with her hood covering her skull, she was significantly shorter than the Firelord, and more so when she pulled it from her head and unveiled her face.

Ursa's warm but aged expression was softened by the light of the corridor behind her. She smiled sincerely as Azula flinched, and extended an affable hand toward the cell's bars.

"Azula," she whispered tenderly, "it's been so long."

In an almost animalistic gesture, Azula bared her teeth at the sight of her mother, whom she repulsed. Her hatred ultimately originated from the woman's obvious acts of favoritism towards Zuko in their young childhood. She detested seeing her again, so much so that her presence summoned horrid memories of solitude and animosity.

"You're broken," Ursa calmly said as she crouched down to Azula's level and dropped her hand, "that much I can see. I hate seeing you this way."

Zuko interrupted, "I finally got word out from Father as to where he had banished her. Turns out she was exiled to the Earth Kingdom and lived in the lower slums of Ba Sing Se as a refugee, just as Uncle and I did before the Jasmine Dragon opened."

Ursa said, "I lived out my days there longing to return to the Fire Nation, just to tell you how much I loved you. And I still love you, Azula. I hope you know that."

Azula uttered a low growl, suddenly recalling what explicitly brought her to this institution. Dragged to the psychiatric wing of the Boiling Rock, the doctors unveiled that she suffered from schizophrenic hallucinations, terribly realistic visions that seemed almost like daydreams. The apparition whom she feared most was that of her falsely doting mother, wishing desperately to reconcile and make peace.

This was what she was seeing before her now, not her brother and mother in the flesh, but mere phantoms of them.

She felt the harsh sensation of deception tingling down her spine. She rose, screaming, and shot a blue, fire-riddled palm forward. From her lips came hotter flame as Ursa and Zuko scurried out of the cell, and closed the groaning door behind them. Seeing that they were no longer with her, Azula ceased fire. Still frightfully upset from the encounter, she sniffled as she listened to their descending footfalls down the outer corridor.

Another shrill moan left the ceiling pipes. Azula sighed in despair as a single tear streamed down her white cheek. Again, she was in isolation. She had no inkling as to whether or not her mother truly was back. All her life, she had assumed the woman had died, and her death went unnoted by her family in her absence. But, perhaps she was wrong. If real and existent, Azula doubted Ursa would visit again, in fear of her own safety. If not that, it was her true lack of care for her daughter that would keep her from coming.

The former princess contemplated then if her aura of silence was over, if she was again to become her mindless self. The thought alone was enough to bring her down on quivering knees. Olden memories flashed before her mind, those of force feedings, pinpricks and injections flooding her veins, the flurry of white coats dressing her in a straightjacket.

Azula buried her head in her arms and choked back a fitful cry. Her mother had returned to devastate her once more with taunting lies of love and forgiveness. She was not foolish enough to take Ursa at her word, yet, with all her aching heart, she desired to one day hear her mother reveal how much she truly cared. She desired even more to hear herself not doubt her at all. But, like the rusted pipelines along the prison's ceiling, Ursa's voice aggravated her. Whatever came from her lips only caused her pain and misery and a lifelong sentence of lonesomeness.

Azula's heavy heart sank. No longer able to hold her turbulent emotions back, she began to weep, the flowing tears hitting her plain clothes like bullets. In a tired fury, she rested herself on her side, and pressed her front against the farthest wall. She prayed to the spirits as she cried for just a moment of sleep, and hoped in vain that they would answer.

_Spirits don't heed the words of monsters,_ she assumed then, as she curled into a fetal position, and waited for the rapture of morning.


	2. Chapter One: A Visitor From the Past

**Author's Note: This took forever for two reasons. One, this chapter is longer than every chapter written in 2009 (so, expect some stretches of time between updates)! And two, I was caught up in the next update of the realistic game, WolfQuest… Me big fan of WolfQuest! Oh, and I share my computer with a sister and a dad. That presents problems that go without explanation.**

**Also, a big thank you to my only two reviewers! I appreciate it!**

**I'm disheartened by the lack of encouragement I'm getting from others. Please, people, don't just fave and run –fave **_**and **_**review! And to all those who are obviously providing me with hits, don't just hit and run –hit **_**and **_**review! I want to know what I'm improving with this story, and what might be setting it back!**

**This chapter is quite different than its 2009 counterpart. Chan and Azula's conversation is not as harsh and "exaggerated" as it was in the original version of the story. I focused more on what needed to be said and I weighed my words heavily on Ozai's obligation for Azula and how it plays into her and Chan's imperative (and rather explicit) fling of romance. I also lengthened said love scene significantly and detailed it better. The reason for that being because I labeled the act in 2009 as a rape, but, realistically, how could I construe the act as such when Azula willingly allowed Chan to make love to her? So, in this one, I actually made the scene qualify as a rape.**

**Review, por favor!**

Chapter One: A Visitor From the Past

Just as she had ceased to count the days that passed inside the institutional, Azula had stopped counting each and every night she had spent awake –each moonstruck night she had spent without so much as an hour of decent sleep, without so much as a minute of tired rest.

Her eyes were spider-veined and yellow with wakeful dread as the hushed sizzling of a petite spark of flame hit her ears and stirred her to all fours. A flickering ember burned slow upon the corner of a tattered burgundy blanket that was set just inches in front of her in an unfolded heap. Pouting with an unenergetic exhale, she shifted her wrist, and extinguished it.

A twist of tangled midnight black hair then fell between the princess' eyes as she lowered her hand to the rock-hard floor. She grumbled as she strenuously twirled the tress behind her earlobe, hoping it would stay put. It quickly came loose and dropped down her forehead. Its untrimmed, uneven tip tickled her nose as she contemplated leaving it there. Azula cursed herself. She recalled, three years ago, she had once had an envious head of hair so smooth that it glistened like silk under the sun. But after she had sent a fierce scissor blade through it in her spell of madness, all that it had to boast had cascaded down to the carpet below her feet.

Three years, it had been since that day. She had spent three years cloaked by this same consuming darkness. She had spent three years devoid of personal contact, aside from the abrasive warden, the white-masked nurses, and the helmeted guards. Never once in that span of time had a member of her own lineage come to visit her, to give her solace during her most crucial time of need.

She thought again of the events that took place during Sozin's Comet, how she had unthinkingly robbed Zuko of life, if only briefly. She had assumed he was doomed then, and it came to her now that Zuko himself had probably assumed the same for her before his unexpected drop-in. And it was presumably this assumption that he told to his allies, warning them too that it was useless for them to come see her in her wasted condition.

Pictures of Zuko ascending what was to be her throne danced in her mind. The crown that had once been suspended above her head was today sitting upon Zuko's. He probably reveled in his undeserved position, but perhaps he was dignified enough to not brag about to his sister.

That was, perhaps, the very reason why she had not seen a familiar face in three years, aside from those she saw in her haunting daydreams, which she still debated them as being. They seemed real, each and every one, so very realistic that this hypothetically most recent one was still mysterious to her. Had the Firelord actually been within the confines of this cell with her? She breathed inward, as if challenging herself to catch the scent of his presence, or, at least, his mother's –_her _mother's. She smelled nothing but dead, pumped-in air, which clung to the rising dust particles of her dirty chamber. She reached forward, and touched a rust-reddened bar that her mother had clutched in her attempts at reconciliation. It had a slight resonance of heat under her palm.

_Yes, _Azula thought at once, _she was here. Here, speaking with me._

_No, _came the realization, _it was my flame which caused this heat, not my mother's hand…_

Ursa's visage came between the bars in a distorted form, and she placed a ghostly, gnarled hand where it had supposedly rested last.

But before she had any chance to say a word, a black shadow of Ozai swallowed her figure away. He slipped through the bars like the apparition that he was, his prophecy effortlessly repeating at the outline of his lips.

"_I need a suitor… an heir to the throne," _he whispered with slyness. _"That's all I ask of you."_

Azula challenged him, "You predict marriage for me, Father, and what just man would ever marry an imprisoned monster?"

He answered with the only words he could say.

"I would never stoop to the level of being dominated by a man," she loudly argued. "And never would I sink so low as to allow a man to inject his venom into me, just to conceive the heir you so desperately desire."

Ozai disintegrated into thin air as a low-ranked guard passed her door and intrusively knocked. He barked irately, "Hey, stop your yelling in there, you wretch!"

As soon as the words slipped from his lips, he headed back in the direction from which he came. The booming thud of his cascade of footsteps was stopped instantly by the echoing sound of a broadsword leaving its sheath. Sensing danger just along the hallway, Azula rose from her spot on the floor. The screams and cries of a brutal scuffle reverberated across her wing of the prison, but just as it began, it ended with the simple, audible act of slicing through armor and the precious flesh underneath. A body hit a wall –hard –as the victor made quick strides to Azula's cell.

Clanking keys fumbled at the door lock until the right one slipped through the bolt. It unlocked with a click, and the door burst open wide on still shrill hinges. Light filtered Azula's quarters; she sat down and looked away from it, feeling it burn at her closed eyelids, just as it did when Firelord Zuko visited her.

A familiar, gallant male voice spoke as the door closed behind him, "Well, well, look who it is. The princess of our nation in a lowly prison cell."

Azula blinked, focusing on the intruder before her. She remembered him quite well. He had been the first man that she had ever surrendered to (aside from her now-imprisoned father, of course), felt feelings for, and, for a brief time, loved. Kissed.

"Chan." She grimaced as she spat out the single syllable of his name, as if it were something detestable hitting her palate. Her grimed yellow teeth exposed themselves in a flash and she offered him a dark, repulsed stare.

"So, you remember me," he said, nodding and smiling affirmatively. "Good. I'm glad."

"Leave me. Now." It was the only comeback she could muster in her surprise at seeing him here in front of her.

"I will," Chan said with a sharp, dagger-like smile. This answer appeased the princess only slightly. She feared a lie from him, though; he was capable of deceit, as he had easily deceived her when she had kissed his lips and revealed her intentions for their relationship at a party he had held in his summer beach home on Ember Island. _Good intentions as they were,_ she reflected.

"When I get what I want," he finished at last, his grin broadening.

Panic rustled then at Azula's fiery nerves. Her dirty fingers dug deeply into her palm as she hastily replied, distracting herself from Chan's sturdy gaze, "What do you want?"

His request was most likely a simple one: the yearning of something, Azula believed wholeheartedly, he did not deserve. Perhaps it was a sincere apology for trashing his party he craved, or genuine sorrow for obliterating whatever honor he had left for his father's good name and title. Both were unattainable desires; both, simply, were things she wished not to give.

"Why didn't you just tell me who you were on the night of my party?" Chan queried. "Why didn't you divulge your rank to me or anybody else there?"

"Why should I tell you anything?"

He shrugged, but then answered, "I just want to know why. I'm curious –is that enough for you?"

Azula seethed, a partial lie slipping off her tongue, "If you must know, I kept my identity a secret because my rank weighed heavily on my social existence then. I wanted, for once, some semblance of normality in my hectic life. I desired the opportunity to choose who I could love because my title bounded me to the ritual of my father finding me an unaffectionate, rich suitor who would ultimately overshadow me upon marriage."

The bold man before the princess crossed his arms at his chest. Azula peered up at his clothes. A gold-laced red vest coated his back, its front open and tied at the hip. His pants were darker than the vest, a burgundy shade, and were baggy and loose on his muscular legs.

Azula had to admit, as much as she detested him for his actions against her on the night of his secret bash, Chan was still the attractive man she remembered him being. Fawn-haired, dashing, remarkably eye-catching. Finely groomed, well-endowed. She cursed herself in silence for thinking these things. He was no more deserving of her compliments than Zuko was.

Chan replied daringly, "I think you're lying. You know why?"

"But I'm not," Azula snarled.

He disregarded her statement. "Because I know a lot about you. You're conceited, arrogant, self-obsessed. Proud too, of your lineage. If you were Firelord today, your husband, if you had one, would be shadowed by you, and you know it."

Azula's tense body lunged forward. She crossly snapped, "Who are you to presume what would become of my life if history had had a different outcome for me? I know you're here to hear me apologize for not obeying you at your party, for having my friends and the now-Firelord destroy your family's priceless heirlooms."

A confused glance etched at Chan's grayish eyes. "No, I'm not," he declared, "though you did destroy some valuable pieces of my family's heritage. But, listen, that's not why I'm here."

"Then why are you?" came the princess' bitter question.

A ceiling pipe screamed as a gush of stained gray water leaked into the corner to Chan's right. A dip in the flooring of Azula's cell had become the basin for the spilling liquid, and all that dripped from the pipelines flowed down to it. In response, Chan sarcastically whispered, "Boy, you'd think they'd find a less dank cell to place someone like you in."

"Just answer my question."

"Okay, fine," he surrendered emotionlessly. "It was just a considerate thought. But look, when you and I talked on the porch of my beach home, I could tell you liked me, and maybe I liked you too. You were beautiful and vibrant, but so unsure. I found myself, I guess, attracted to that side of you. But then you had to ruin the moment between us."

Closing her eyes, Azula winced at the painful memory of her tyrannical outburst upon his deck that night after the sun had set, though what she had said was nothing out of line. She plainly had revealed to him that he was the man she had wanted to conquer the sparring world with. That she had seen the potential of a strong and permanent relationship between them; she felt, reasonably, that her father would have approved of her choice in mate.

"Yes, I may have been intimidating," Azula admitted with a hint of satisfaction, "but my goal was to tell you of my plans for us. Would you have wanted to dominate the earth and win the war alongside me?"

"But you didn't win the war."

"Perhaps your lack of contribution to my cause played into that fact," Azula said in a solid tone. She adjusted herself back up against the farthest wall, and pulled her recently-burned blanket up to her lap. She smiled deviously.

Chan rolled his eyes. "You can't possibly blame me for your descent, Princess. Your failures are your own. And to tell you the truth…" he drifted off slightly, contemplating a wickeder way to finish his sentence, "my image of a good wife would be one who is willing to submit to the husband. And if you had wanted so badly for me to be at your side during your reign, you should have been obedient to me. Followed my orders when I gave them. Played the part of guest to my position as host. And if you had won the war and I had been your choice as husband, I would have had the Phoenix King label me as the designated Firelord."

"My father would have never agreed with it, and if you had proposed as much, he would have simply chosen another man for me."

Chan laughed, pressing the princess into a corner with her words. "I thought you didn't like the idea of your dad choosing who you'd marry."

"I would have had no choice in the matter," Azula commented gloomily.

A flicker of deviousness radiated from Chan's steely eyes as the expelled princess melted into a spell of sadness. His mouth curved slightly to unveil a cunning and domineering smile. Azula caught it.

"What?" she inquired demandingly.

"You're so easy to read, Princess," he mocked. "You've lost your potency, the influence you gained only by deceiving others. You may have fooled me three years ago, but you can't deceive me now. I can easily see the three years of struggle on your face, the worry lines that cross your brow."

Azula's façade of sullenness melted back to dread. How was it that Chan, a man whom she had met and interacted with but once in her life, could interpret her every word and action? How was he able to retort every comeback she had with ease? He seemed almost like her, in a way, before her descent. Calm, capable, clearly skilled at his craft. His personality was so very different than what it had been the day she had met him. Chan had been obnoxious, but easily bendable under her anger, easily prone to failure. Just, simply, a stupid teenager.

But, in mind, he had grown. He was not the man she knew and, at one point, faintly loved.

Azula shook her head dejectedly, and asked, "How do you know so much?"

Chan decided to himself that the best way to answer the princess was to disclose what else he knew of her and her struggles of life. He stated, "Considering everything you've told me so far, I can tell it hurts you to mention your father. He expected so much from you and you failed him when Sozin's Comet arrived. Do you realize that you were his safety net? If you had been victorious, the Fire Nation would have still been under the same regime, even despite the Avatar defeating the Phoenix King. The war would have still gone on afterwards, and we would have found other ways of bringing Ba Sing Se to its knees. You let Ozai down, just as, if I recall, you let down your mom when you were a kid."

"What do you know of my mother?" Azula wondered, again sensing the same twinge of regret she felt at her bosom when she spoke with Ursa and Zuko not an hour or so before.

"Well," Chan pondered, "I know you hated her because she thought you were unruly. And that she left you to protect her favorite kid."

"How do you know so much, Chan?" she asked for a second time, evidently startled by the extent of his knowledge. In truth, she herself knew next to nothing about him, beyond who his famous father was and where he resided during the summer months, but he appeared to know just about everything about her. The secret she had kept from him on Ember Island –her own identity –it seemed, had been exposed.

Then, it came to her. Chan was an apparition too, a trick of her manipulative father's hand. The figment of a suitor he needed today in his paternal obligation to find her one. She presumed that Ozai's drive to fulfill the prophecy would assuredly lead him into choosing just about anyone to fill the shoes of matrimony, even someone like Chan.

"You're not even, real, are you?" Azula accused, waiting for Chan's reaction. She gazed uneasily at his eyes, searching for any sign of falsehood, any sign that what was inside them was of one dimension. She probed his shape for a full form, seeking an abrupt and airy vanishing act from him at the moment of her allegation.

Chan stayed put, and outstretched his hand, just as Ursa had done. Only his intentions were different.

"Yes, I'm real," he firmly explained. "I'm flesh and blood, Princess." His masculine hand slipped through the bars of her cell as he made an attempt to touch her skin, to show her that he was as real as she was. That he stood genuinely before her this night.

Though as far away as she had been from him, the flustered princess jerked at the gesture like a trapped beast. She shook her head, whipping her choppy black hair about her face as she tried in vain to erase Chan's sharp visage from her vision and mind. He remained crystal clear in her brain when she tightly shut her yellow eyes.

As Azula wallowed aimlessly in her discontent of Chan and all that he had proved and done in the few minutes he had spent speaking to her, Chan took it upon himself to enter her square premises, twisting the right key into the lock upon the bars. The princess reopened her eyes as the rusty metal burst open wide, and Chan hurriedly placed himself right in front of her. He turned then, and snapped the cell back shut. The bars locked with a resounding clack.

Once the reverberations ceased, the only audible sound was that of Azula's uneven, panic-stricken gasps. Her shelter had been breached without some semblance of conflict; Chan had penetrated her asylum without as much as a thought of being denied. Azula's pounding heart crashed inside her ribcage as she quickly realized that Chan had both the key to her mind as well as the key to her only home. That protective barrier between her and the outside world and all its dangers and foes was compromised.

"Get out," she commanded, catching her breath then and making a sincere effort to reestablish her composure. "Get out."

Chan, in response, crouched down, and sat himself upon the dusty floor just about a foot away from her. Azula backed her head against backmost wall and peered behind her, as if expecting the brick to suddenly erode away and allow her a decent chance of escaping this confrontation.

"I'm not going to let you leave here, Princess," Chan informed with an air of anger in his tone of voice. He scooted his body closer to her, their knees then touching. Azula retreated her legs at the unsettling contact, pressing her knees tightly to her breasts.

"Please leave," Azula pleaded, tears beginning to sting at her lashes. Whatever confidence she had had before was completely gone, and there was no summoning it back. Chan had her ensnared, the key to her freedom deep in his pocket.

He grimaced and snarled, "I already told you, I'll leave when I get what I want."

"And I already gave you what you asked for," hissed Azula, "my reason for holding back my identity."

From Chan's throat came an astounded cackle. "Do you honestly think I came here, wasted my precious time tonight and took the life of a guardsman, just to_ talk_ to you? I would have opted to do that during visiting hours if that had been my only reason to see you."

Taken aback by his brazen admission, a dejected Azula questioned, "What else could you possibly want from me tonight that you haven't already taken?" Her blood was boiling inside her as the words cascaded from her lips.

"Well," Chan confessed, "there is one thing I have yet to take from you." The statement escaped him without so much as an insinuation of constraint. He seemed almost proud in his admittance that there was more of her to steal away. "But, be assured, Princess, I'll take it in time."

Chan lunged forward and took Azula to his lips before she had the opportunity to contradict what he had told her. With domineering force, he reached behind her and grabbed the nape of her neck, drawing her head closer to him and deepening the kiss. Strands of Azula's black tousled hair coiled around the fingers of his other hand as he brought it to her skeletal back.

The princess, now bewildered, recoiled. Her lips tingled –she detested the sensation –and she struggled and pried herself out of his grip, wriggling beneath him. Once free, she took hold of her sheet and shielded her body with it. She spat, "Don't you dare touch me like that!"

Her minuscule threat fell on deaf ears; Chan easily pulled the blanket off of her and tossed it behind him. Azula caught his hungry eyes roaming over her clothed form. Her mind raced. How could Chan possibly think lustfully of her after what he had said and done? After what she had told him? Then, she grasped his motives: he aspired only to prove his earlier point –that he would, indeed, overshadow her if a relationship ensued between them.

Chan passionately kissed her again, and his strong hands slithered down to her covered chest. Azula's felt her nipples harden as his thumbs circled over the fabric above them. Without thought, she emitted a pleasured moan when he then delicately traced the contour of one of her breasts with an index finger.

"I thought you didn't want me to touch you," he teased, chuckling quietly, and glided his hands under her raggedy top. He tugged it up off her head and flung it over his shoulder. It landed atop her blanket, forgotten.

Azula's eyes followed Chan's as they fell to her exposed bosom. Goose bumps spread across her skin as the coldness of her cell caught up with her. Salvaging back her rage, she, with her own hands, disgustedly shielded her nipples from his unrelenting stare.

"If you lay a hand on me again," she meanly warned, "I'll…"

"You'll what?" Chan challenged. "Scream? No one will hear you. The only guard assigned to watching you is dead."

"There are more," Azula argued.

"Not on this floor, there aren't."

"How many did you have to kill to get to me?"

Chan whispered, "Just the one."

He gently seized her frail wrists and raised them away from her chest. Giving in to his strength, Azula's bare body slowly fell to the hard floor as he pressed her arms to the ground.

Chan had her pinned, and she was powerless against him. He had brute strength to boot. She had nothing at all but the weakness that coincided with her condition as a once-senseless inmate. All her days she had spent insisting on remaining silent and subdued were regrettably flushing through her tangled head. Those three years of torture to her mind and body left her unprepared for this encounter with Chan, for he had caught her unawares on this night, drained of willpower and devoid of strength.

He enveloped his brawny arms around her and pushed his muscled abdomen against hers, his nails digging into her spine. His hungry, open mouth found her gorgeous left breast, and his tongue swilled over her erected nipple. He sucked at it briefly, causing Azula to again, against her will and mind, release an amorous moan. Upon hearing the sound of her pleased voice, Chan let go of the breast and began mouthing the right one.

But Azula herself was far from pleased. Although she was unable to hammer him with physical might, she had something she knew without a doubt that he did not. At her resting palm, she summoned a small cerulean flame and jerked her arm, discharging it. Without even lifting his head from her exquisite chest, Chan deflected the blast, and clutched her wrist. He gave it a tight squeeze, and reluctantly pulled himself off her breast.

"Don't even bother," came his annoyed advice. "Resisting me will do you no good."

His free hand weaved its way down her taut stomach and stopped at the knot of her slacks, stained and bled of much of their crimson color. Chan fumbled with the string, and, without hurry, untied it. With her pants now loose around her emaciated waist, he dragged them down her legs, the whole time enjoying the soft sensation of her slender curves on his skin. Her figure was jaw-dropping to him, even under the horrid circumstances in which she existed. Thin, starved was her shape, but still attractive.

"Spirits, you're stunning," he complimented when her pants were finally extracted. They too joined the blanket and Azula's shirt. "How on Agni's earth are you still pure?"

Azula's wide and fear-stricken gold eyes met his. Yes, it was her purity he craved to steal: the last claimable part of her. Her mind and heart had been stolen years ago, her sanity and rank too, but it was her innocence that had lasted. She clenched her legs together. "Don't do this to me," she begged. "Chan… Please, don't take my –"

"Relax," Chan purred and skimmed his hand over the bright red lace at the top of her silk panties. He traced his finger down her pubic bone, and gripped her legs, spreading them apart. Bringing his firm hand between them, he rubbed her through her panties.

Azula stiffened, her teeth gritting. A single tear fell down the protrusion of her cheek, dropping to her clavicle. Even while her legs were held, she attempted frantically to tighten them, to close them on his hand so he would withdraw it.

But there was no resisting him, though; he had said this himself. There was no reversing what was to come.

"Relax, Princess," Chan repeated, stroking her harder. Her heaving chest rose and fell in an uneven rhythm, and her jaw bit down into her lips. She felt no desire at all to comply with his solid command, but he would not budge.

"Chan, no…" Azula cried out. "Don't do this to me, please…"

Chan's fondling ceased at her words, and he stared longingly into Azula's tear-glistened eyes. Without breaking the gaze, he promptly caught her off guard and removed her panties from her hips.

He chuckled, "Gods, Princess, you're so easy to fool."

"Chan, you don't need to do this…"

No reply came from Chan, for his attention was fixed on Azula's bare beauty before his eyes. Her slender, quite conquerable figure, a figure easily breakable like glass under the weight of his authority. Her porcelain white skin, plush like velveteen to his touch though drawn against her skeleton. Her fiery eyes, wild with anxiety, yet penetrating and hypnotic. Her innocence, unclaimed but within his reach for the taking.

Chan shifted his shoulders and peeled his thin, gold-laced vest off his back, his muscles flexing and protruding with his movements. In a hasty motion, it found its way to the floor as a sharp, splitting ring commenced upon its landing. Azula lifted her head to the sound. Hidden within the pocket of Chan's vest, were the keys to the prison.

_And one of them, _she considered to herself, contemplating a plan of action, _is the key to my freedom. And there is only one way to get to it._

Azula rose from the floor and, after flashing Chan a confident grin, pushed her body against his chest, her lips locking with his. She almost sensed the warmth of their previous kisses upon him, and she took in that heat when she planted her tongue into his mouth. Her kisses then traveled the contour of his neck, her hands brushing his build as she finally pressed her nose to his chin, nuzzling him lovingly. He smelt fresh. Scents of grass and clean air and spring blooms filtered through her nostrils, and she recognized that Chan had most certainly traveled in his time before his strange visit here. The tantalizing aromas attached to his skin were like keepsakes to the places he had been, and she wished she could come to know them all…

Chan was astonished by her change in attitude, but decided within himself not to fight it. He cupped a breast and eyed her hands as they passed down each ripple on his torso, but then remarked guardedly, "Why the sudden change of heart, Princess?"

Azula smiled a devious, seductive smile and lifted her index finger to his lips, shushing him. Lowering it slowly, she kissed him again, her palms caressing his cheeks. Her fingernails, though short and jagged from her pitiable existence in the Boiling Rock, tickled his skin as she held tight to the kiss. A hand managed to find its way to the back of his head, and she massaged his fawn hair, light and feathery between her tender fingers. His tresses were so well-groomed, so soft and silken. There was so much of him that she secretly loved; she almost detested the fact that she was outsmarting him here, playing into his lusts.

Aroused, Chan kneaded at the breast in his hand and begged her on with his own elated moans. At his urge, Azula advanced along to his loose-fitting pants and wriggled her right hand down into them. She carved a smile across her lips upon the moment her skin came into contact with his penis, and she gracefully rubbed its shaft, feeling the intensity of her strokes cause it to gain rigidity.

Before she had a chance to stimulate him further, Azula released Chan's erect penis and her hand slithered out of his pants. She fondled at the hip of his slacks, and speedily pulled them from his legs. His underwear quickly followed. Both garments found themselves atop his shirt, separate from Azula's clothes. She took her opportunity and again grabbed hold of his penis in her right hand, stroking it from shaft to tip. Her other hand, however, snaked around him, and quickly made its way to his pile of clothes. All the while digging for his keys somewhere in the mound and caressing his member, Azula's eyes of molten gold never left Chan's, and she distracted his gaze by offering another kiss to his lips, a kiss sweet and tender and somehow meaningful. She seemed to almost be falling for his charms, somehow willing to love him again and somehow unwilling to fool him. Chan returned the kiss with equal measure, their lips melding together in a way that it seemed they were molded from Agni and created for one another.

A need for air overtook them, and the kiss broke. Remaining within centimeters apart, the two of them allowed their lips to brush against each other. Azula nuzzled noses with Chan, his pleasant smell hitting her again, when, finally, her left hand seized the prison keys, and she extracted them out of his vest pocket. The rattling noise from them, of course, immediately betrayed her intentions. Chan's eyes caught the glimmering gold in his peripheral vision, his enjoyment crumbling to utter rage at her for betraying him. The swill of elated feelings Azula herself had encountered dissolved too in a period of seconds, and her face turned from a rosy red blush to a ghostly pale.

She had made a costly mistake.

Chan shoved Azula back down on the floor, and swiped the jingling set of keys from her. He threw them back into his bundle of clothes behind him.

"I warned you about defying me, you whore," he spat, furiously grabbing her off the floor by her hair and recklessly forcing her back against the right-side wall. Azula screamed viciously at him, writhing painfully as he jostled her head about. She made a valiant effort to kick him in the groin, but he merely clutched the leg she raised and promptly hoisted it up to his hip. Brutally, he thrust his hard penis into her entrance. Azula, overwhelmed and ultimately conquered again, yelped at his admission, her insides intruded and her innocence swiftly taken without warning.

"Oh, gods, Chan, please," Azula sobbed, her body and her words bobbing with his vigorous motions. She blinked back tears, but still, she surrendered many, allowing them to fall from her face. "Stop this. I didn't mean to –"

Chan growled back, "You didn't mean to fuck me over? I'm finishing what you started, Princess." His powerful thrusts grew in speed, and his breath began to leave him as he came closer to climaxing.

Desperate, undeniably desperate, Azula swirled a licking sapphire flame, but, just as before, Chan warded it off, this time interlocking his fingers with hers, sandwiching the fire between their unified palms.

"Stop with the firebending, Princess," he ordered heatedly, moaning. Punishing her, he bit at her breast, teasing her nipple between his teeth. Azula yipped, which summoned him to do the same to the other breast. Her torment was rapture to him, just as double-crossing him had been, at one time, he recalled, rapture to her.

"Chan, no!" she cried as an unsettling warmth from Chan's abrupt orgasm tingled between her legs. He withdrew his dripping member. Hot semen wetted Azula's thighs upon his emission, and it gave the impression to her that it was scorching her skin. But she felt something else oozing out of her. Perplexed, she brought a hand to her entrance and, in doing so, coated her fingertips with bright red blood.

Her heart dipped. Her knees gave out. She collapsed to the ground with a thud, immersing herself in a flood of tears. This was what the punishment for adulteration was; this was what the punishment was for challenging her fanatical father. This was the price for silence and for disobedience.

Azula tearfully glared up at Chan, who was sneering above her. He showed her no sympathy for her loss. He felt in his heart no sympathy for it. Bending over, he lifted her back up against the stone wall, his conniving smile never breaking. He took hold of her glistening orbs with his, and raised a quizzical eyebrow. Azula's face was drawn with questions, accusations.

"W –why, Chan?" she asked, her head dipping and her bronze eyes sealing shut behind damp eyelids. "Why would you do this to me? Why?"

"This," Chan replied, sneakiness still bleeding off of him, "this was your father's wish, Azula. Not mine."

"_I need a suitor… an heir to the throne," _Ozai's apparition whispered in Azula's ear, tickling it with a forked tongue. _"That's all I ask of you."_

"Are you my father's…" the words drifted away as she pulled Chan close. If this was what her father wanted of her, then it was her longing to have it be out of love rather than obligation. She wanted Chan's forgiveness, though; she wanted compassion from him, even after what he had stolen from her. She tenderly attempted to kiss him, but he rejected her advance, and turned his head away.

"I don't understand," she declared solemnly. "Don't you… aren't you in –"

"No, I'm not," Chan said. "You really thought I fucked you out of love? I'm not in love with you, Princess, nor am I committed to you after tonight. Your father commanded me to do this, and I did it. Simple as that."

"Why?"

He scoffed, rolling his eyes. "Why do you think? For sweet vengeance, for the sex –honestly, it doesn't matter why!"

Azula's face bled with hurt. "It matters to me, Chan," she said, choking back a sob. She pitifully sniffled in spite of herself.

"Well, forget it."

With that, Chan turned around and assumed redressing himself. In a matter of a few wordless minutes –which, to the princess, at least, dragged on in the frame of hours in her agitated mind –his clothes were on him once again. And, in a quick stroke, Chan pocketed the prison keys.

He gave her a disdainful look. "Remember, I'm not obligated to you after I leave here tonight. Any decisions you make or accidents that follow are not mine to deal with. Your chances at escaping this prison are yours to take. Don't assume your freedom on me, and, for your own sake, you should protect my name. Maybe in time you'll figure out why."

One word caught Azula's attention, and the oddity of it made it effortlessly spill from her. "Accidents?"

Chan left her hanging on it and unlocked the prison doors. He stepped outside, holding the main door open a few seconds. "Keep in mind what I said, Princess."

This was his farewell to her, his goodbye; it was yet another order for her to comply with.

"Please," she pleaded in a low whimper, "don't leave me here."

He locked her back up and left her alone and in stunned silence, walking out along the corridor of the floor. Listening with sharp ears, she heard his footfalls lighten as his distance grew. Eventually, the noise died out to nothing at all, and was replaced by the old gagging pipelines. Azula had drowned the constant noise out during Chan's stay, and she shuddered the moment the cacophony of dripping and groaning commenced again.

She hugged her frail nude body, her matted, uneven bangs falling into her view, and shivered. Much too startled to grab her blanket, she stayed in place, and rocked herself. Pondering the previous events of the night, she wondered if, perhaps, this was just a horrific reverie, and that she would wake, cuddling beneath her cover, in the coming moments. But the thought was dashed when she peered down to the floor. A blackish red puddle of blood lay between her raised legs, flowing down into the heavy cracks on the aged stone like olden wounds resurfaced and left to bleed out.

A soreness claimed Azula's insides and she rapidly responded to it by retching the acrid bile stinging in the pool of her stomach. Wiping her vomit-riddled mouth with her forearm, she surrendered a cough or two. The burn the liquid left on her throat caused her voice to go raw, and her coughing fit seemed scratchy as it exited her. The murky stench steamed at her nostrils then, and she promptly rose from the floor. Stopping just behind the bars of her cell, she outstretched her arm, and touched at the place her mother had handled not so long before.

The corroded cage beneath the princess' palm let off only the impression of the unforgiving cold, as if it had never been touched at all…


	3. Chapter Two: The Black Ribbon Message

**Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who reviewed and waited patiently for me to update this! I appreciate the sudden outpour of comments very, very much! And, to answer Shakeru's question: Azula lost her combative skills because she had basically been starving herself and mentally at the Boiling Rock. Her body and mind were incapable of resistance, whereas Chan body was well fit and ready to take her on. That is what made him significantly stronger than her. Hope that helps you out!**

**Ooh, ooh, random fun fact: Ursa's injury is symbolic to my own life. Her burn on her lower lip is a bit of symbolism to a permanent nerve injury I received in the same location after getting my wisdom teeth removed when I was fifteen. There, I cannot feel my lip (literally to the point where –to name a bold example –my evil dog had bitten me and I didn't notice that he actually punctured me until my mom yelled at me for dripping blood all over my shirt…) and four of my front bottom teeth.**

**This chapter is weaker than those previous, mainly because Azula makes no appearance and writing it to completion was **_**almost**_** boring… Oh, well. It had to be written in order to move on…**

**Please, review! I love reviews! So do you readers who expect reviews for your own stories! Review!**

Chapter Two: The Black Ribbon Message

Flitting on last legs, the dying red glow upon a melted wax candlestick flickered with but an infinitesimal amount of life upon the Firelord's charred left eye. Shadows from the flame rocked through the ridges of his face, and highlighted the little glaze of what was left of his sight. The night outside was at its darkest peak, just before what seemed to be the hour of dawn, and it drew out the gloominess of the hallway in which he sat in.

Dread crossed his crinkled brow. He was intensely tired, having been awake for all the night, and immeasurably worried for the sake of his mother. He understood well she was harmed only little by the sliver of his rabid sister's blue flame, but it troubled him no less.

Vexed, he stood up, smoothed his wrinkled robe out, and pressed his ear to a door closest to him. The only perceptible noise was that of his ally, Katara's swirling healing water calmly dousing Ursa's scalded skin. Another sound followed but moments later –the family physician's matured, rugged voice, but his words were unclear to the Firelord. His tone rang as uncharacteristically solemn, but the reason very well could have been simply because he too was pulled from sleep and forced into wakefulness by Ursa's emergency visit.

Zuko stepped back and took his seat once again. He settled his chin upon his palm and tapped impatient fingers on the arm of his chair. With his weary mind racing, he thought back to the hours previous, when his visit with Azula had turned violent. He recalled leaving her prison cell in a snap, seeing in a flash his mother's lower face burn before him. She did not cry as she had recoiled under her injury, nor did she want to leave the tormentor who caused it. She had demanded to stay and coax Azula out of her madness, but Zuko's fixed attention to her bleeding face convinced him to deny her request. Reports of Azula's medical and mental history then flowed through his conscience like a dam broken and left to flood. Each addition to her symptoms, each diagnosis, every conclusion to her fate, raised the deluge.

The Firelord raked his hand through his hair. There was no patching up the damage done; there was no salvaging Azula's sanity. The weakness of her mind, the determination of her spirit to remain in the wasted state she had been in since the return of Sozin's Comet, raised these feelings of doubt inside him. What more could be done now to the princess without it being seen as a waste, without it being seen as brutal cruelty? What words could be said to her that would lead her to reason?

There were none, it seemed. It dismayed Zuko, this truth. His options had run out, his ideas had run dry. Taxpayer support was depleting by the day, and the Fire Nation's public's support in their former sovereign was fading at an even faster rate. At the realization, Zuko contemplated the two positions he occupied: a leader of the nation's people and a brother to his crippled sister. Which weighed heaviest on him, he did not know. Which demanded his honor first, he did not know. His duty to his country, or to his family? The former was mounted by his crown that he had earned by fighting his family three years previous; the latter was intensified and brought to its low by his fighting for that crown…

"Milord."

The family physician stepped out of the room, Ursa and Katara following close behind him. He gestured at Ursa, who stepped forward and waited for the physician to speak the outcome of her predicament.

"She sustained only a minor, but still permanent burn to her lower lip on the right side, milord," he informed, rubbing under his nose. His countenance drooped with fatigue like dripping paint. "Beyond the noticeable mark to her face there, she will recover fine."

"Thank you, sir," Zuko acknowledged, and offered him a bow of thankfulness.

"Milord, it is Master Katara that you should be thanking. It was with her help that I was able to heal your mother this well."

Zuko smiled in gratitude at his wartime ally, reflecting in secret that the physician's willingness to recognize both her healing abilities and her title would have been unheard of if she had not brought down Azula on the day of the comet. At the time of the war's conclusion, Zuko had enlisted the talents of Water Tribe healer women into all medical facilities in the Fire Nation as a signal of respect to their bending practices. It had been his wish to recruit Katara to the Royal Palace, but she was too important of a figure in history –as the Avatar's friend, teacher, and lover –to spend her time dwelling in a physician's clinic. The single reason she was here to heal his mother now was that she was visiting the Fire Nation in celebration of the recent passing of the third-year anniversary of the termination of the century-long war. Avatar Aang, too, was here on visit, as were Sokka, Suki, and Toph.

"Zuko," Ursa called, interrupting Zuko's train of thought. He gave a guilt-ridden look at her scalded lip.

"I'm sorry I did this to you, Mother," he replied, lowering his head in shame.

Ursa extended a sympathetic hand to his chin, and raised his head up to her eyelevel. With a sigh, she said, "You're not to blame for this."

Zuko's feelings of remorse intensified then. "I am!" he brazenly shouted, his arms shooting up in fury above his crown. "I let you into that prison, with full knowledge that Azula was dangerous. Even with the warden's warnings of her unpredictability, I still allowed you to see her…"

His eyes flicked about, roaming speedily over the expressions of his mother, to Katara, to his physician, and back to his mother again. Ursa was alarmed by his outburst, and she withdrew her cupped hand from his chin and let her pale arm fall limply to her side.

"Zuko," she insisted, "I know you're tired and upset, but it was not at your urging that I decided to seek my daughter. I went to that prison on my accord, and I would have still done so without your permission."

"But the warden warned you –"

"The warden warned _you _not to come," Ursa snapped in a way that was entirely out of her character, "not me. There is no reason in the world for a mother to be denied access to her child, especially after years of separation. Azula's pain is mine to bear, and mine to help heal."

Zuko argued back, his emotions in a wreck, "And how do you expect to heal her, Mom? By talking to her again? Talking to her got you burned! Words won't cut it!"

Katara surged forward, and grasped one of Zuko's flailing wrists. She tugged it down, and murmured in a calm, yet firm tone, "Even though I too don't believe in Azula's cause, please don't speak to your mother that way. She's only trying to help you."

Firelord Zuko's first thought to this response was Katara's personal feelings about her own matriarch, who had risked and lost her life to help her child survive the war. Ursa was only performing a similar act for Azula. The blistering hurt of her wound on her lip concerned her less than the necessity of redemption for her lost daughter.

He sank back into the chair he had been sitting in but moments before, pressing his spine hard against the wooden back. Swallowing away his frustration, he whispered with honest regret, "I'm sorry, Mother. I should know your heart's in the right place."

Ursa declared, "Apology forgiven, but you know full well that my heart lies in Azula's release from prison."

"You know I can't discharge her –not without her carrying out her sentence."

"Her sentence is life, Zuko," Ursa disputed, begging her firstborn to have the verdict expelled. "She will never be free."

"Look," he answered, "if Azula someday chooses to make amends and better herself, maybe then I'll reconsider the charges. But she isn't improving herself in any way. She's worsening."

"Because your ways with her aren't guiding her in the right direction."

The turbulence of Zuko's past rushed at him like a thousand bricks. Every failure, every wrong decision he had made, every treacherous order he gave –it all came back. But the sudden and relieving image of Uncle Iroh, like a lift to his load, cleared away the mass. Iroh had guided him, though inadvertently, to righteousness.

He exhaled, and questioned, "What else can I do for her? I've tried everything within reason. I've recruited the best doctors with access to the most innovative medical practices money can provide. I've ordered her to be given medications that have been tested, tried and true. And I've now even spoken with her, just to see if it'd do anything –and it didn't. Everything has backfired. Nothing, as far as I can see, is going to get her anywhere…"

Ursa crouched down to Zuko's level, her arms draping over her knees. "Zuko, just because Azula's situation seems hopeless doesn't mean it actually is. Did you ever once believe during your banishment that you would join the side of the one person you were meant to retrieve for your father?"

"No, not at all," Zuko replied, a curious look looming over his features. "Why?"

"You didn't believe it then, but time had a way of changing you. I would imagine Azula sees her circumstances as discouraging right now, just as you do, but time will catch up to her as well."

A flicker of hope danced across Ursa's golden-brown eyes. Encouraged, she thrust her hand upon Zuko's, and held it there, waiting in eager anticipation for whatever words he would say to her logic. In return, he presented a most remorseful glare at her wound. Like his own scar, it marked her, no matter how small it was.

"You're right," he agreed, breaking his stare, "but I remained banished until I made the right choices on my own. Azula should likewise remain imprisoned until she comes to similar conclusions. I can't let her off easy. What would it teach her?"

Opening her mouth to speak, Ursa was interrupted by the sound of several pattering feet upon the carpet floor. The Avatar, Sokka, Suki, and Toph came running furiously in the direction of the Firelord, with Mai following briskly behind them. Aang and his pals all stopped and each bowed to their friend. Mai, with her face burning with anger, stepped past the respectful bunch and positioned herself just inches from her husband.

"Why did you do it?" she asked, scowling in rage upon Zuko's drained face. "Why did you visit your sister without consulting anyone?"

Zuko rose from the chair, his height then superseding hers, if only slightly, but enough to be imposing. "Because," he replied to her, "my mother had cause to see her."

"And you let her go? Why?" Incensed, Mai shoved an accusing index finger at her husband's face, directly below his nose. The gesture was more cutting than the blades she was known to battle with, and it brought Zuko back a step. He flopped back in the chair.

"Look," he pleaded with her. "I had to let Mom see Azula. It had been years since they had last seen each other, and –"

Mai snapped back, "You overlooked the fact that the physicians in the prison had ruled that resentment towards her mother was the main reason for Azula's madness? You've basically thrown three years worth of taxpayer money to her cause down the drain! You know she's going to go insane again, and we'll have to work even harder to calm her back down! Think of the burden that puts on your people, Zuko!"

Ursa shoved herself between the bickering spouses, extracting her arms out in truce. She spoke: "Please, you two, don't quarrel."

"Yeah," said a yawning Sokka. He stretched his spine and questioned, "What's this all about anyway? What'd you need all us for?"

Acknowledging his trusted friend, Zuko stood back up, and informed, "Well, just a few hours ago, my mother and I visited Azula at the medical wing of the Boiling Rock, and spoke with her, and, as my wife mentioned…" He hesitated as he shook a yawn past his lips. But, too, he paused as he contemplated how to state the obvious without brandishing his failure. But what words could he reveal but those of the truth?

"…My mistakes allowed my sister to possibly slip back into the violent stage of her insanity…"

From the group, there came no acknowledgement to the statement, beyond a slight stirring from flustered Mai. She wore boldly the sufferings of her people on her chest. Zuko knew immediately, just by making eye contact, that she was formulating the notion of giving up on the princess and allowing the Fire Nation people to move on and put their monies to the betterment of the nation and those they destroyed in the war. In fact, Azula's recovery funds had been placing a damper on the projects Zuko had been funding in the colonies. Ceasing the efforts on his disabled sister, Zuko admitted with a twinge at his chest, sounded almost logical…

"How was she before?" asked someone. Zuko stared back; the asker was Toph, peering from the rear of the group. "Wasn't she always that way? Violent, I mean."

"No," declared Mai, "she hasn't been violent for some time. Beyond weekly to monthly medical notices from the warden, we haven't revealed much to the people on how Azula has been for the past couple of years."

"After a year of violent outbursts, Azula's mind gave way to an aura of silence," Zuko said, stealing Toph's query from Mai. "And from that time, she hardly made use of her bending. Until tonight… however."

"Her skills are probably below par, though, right Zuko?" This came from Aang. "No bender could remain skilled after two years without –"

"Her fire is still its signature blue, and it is still considered a threat. I ordered the warden to increase the guard count after my and my mother's departure from the Boiling Rock, but I'm unsure if, as of yet, they carried it out."

In mentioning of the warden, a solitary servant boy dressed in a simple crimson top and similarly red pants slinked quietly over to Zuko, handing him a scroll. Upon the rolled piece of parchment was a thick lace of black ribbon. In shyness –mostly due to the curious, actively staring company he was in –the lanky boy whispered something in Zuko's ear. The Firelord responded in a wave of thanks, and urged to boy to go back to bed where he belonged at this early hour.

Zuko held out the scroll after the boy had obeyed his command and left. He stared tensely at the ribbon tied on it, tentative to unravel it and open up the message inside.

"It… came from the warden," he enunciated slowly, the pressure of that fact weighing on his already stressed mind heavily. "That's what the servant told me."

None of his allies and family members offered a word to this, though their faces wore a brazen mask of anticipation. Seeing that there was nothing left for him to do but open the scroll, he did just that, rolling it down in a gradual pace.

There, boldly, the message read:

_Firelord Zuko,_

_I realize that this note comes just hours from your visit to my prison (and in saying that I am glad you are safe), but this matter is of the utmost importance to you. I require of you an immediate return to the Boiling Rock upon your receiving of this message, for there has been an incident here on the floor in which your sister was held. A guard, the only one on the floor, was murdered –stabbed –brutally, and Princess Azula's cell was tampered with. Although she still remains detained, she was found (by myself and accompanying members of my staff) nude and possibly injured, as we discovered blood within her cell._

_I will explain further upon your return to the Boiling Rock, and I plead you make your travels quick._

_-Warden_

"Mai," was a Zuko could after reading the note in its entirety, "send for a palanquin and command the guards to set up an airship…

"We're going back up there… We _all_ are."


	4. Chapter Three: The Truth Concealed

**Author's Note: Wow! It's been over a year since this last saw an update! I've been scribbling bits and pieces of chapters in my notebook at work, but none have made their way to completion until now!**

**I took the liberty of changing the summary for this story, since the previous one was only a minute tasting of the entire story. I needed something that grasped the tale as a whole, and I think the new one does just that.**

**Along with a different summary, this revisited version is also going to see new chapter titles (even the ones already published). This is because I have so much more to add to the story that I couldn't possibly fill it all into the previous story's mold. Nineteen chapters (including the prologue and epilogue) are not going to be enough to put it all together, so stuff written together in the old one may not be together in the new, thus making a lot of the old titles off and out of vision with what I have now.**

**There are tons of differences between the previous version and this one, as far as this chapter is concerned. Same basic actions and settings, but what is revealed totally changes the game plan for what is going to be revealed in the later updates, which I hope will be quicker than those previous.**

**Read on, and I thank everyone who reads and reviews. Please check out 'Welcome To Parenthood' for sweet little oneshots on Azula and Chan's baby, Raiden too! Fans of this story (previous and current publications) should give the collection a read and a review or two! I'd appreciate it very much!**

Chapter Three: The Truth Concealed

The rising fumes of the scorching lake that housed the Boiling Rock shrouded the sky in an eerie darkness. The water below bubbled and sizzled frightfully, ominously tempting fools to escape the prison it surrounded and fall in. The gray smoke rose in waving motions, and if one had the inspiration to form shapes out of those heated clouds, they would very easily discern the contour of slender hands, with index fingers extended in a coaxing gesture, calling out in whispers of sizzling breaths to those both dense and desperate enough to listen.

Firelord Zuko's eyes wandered to the bubbles in the boiling lake, his mind traveling to his past inside the prison. To his and Sokka's daring rescue attempt within the inescapable fortress. He never remembered Azula having any luck escaping from her confinement, nor did he recall her ever breaking out period. In all her madness, he thought as a massive roll of steam licked past his face and sent sweat beading down his forehead, she had never desired strongly enough the will to free herself. He pressed his palm against his forehead, wiping his brow in vain. It was not her will that kept her from breaking free; it was the will of her record-keeping keepers. The abrasive warden, with his efforts set on maintaining his prison's label, was swallowing his sister's ability to find freedom.

But, then again, so was he.

The warship he, Mai, Ursa, and the Avatar's cast were riding in made a sudden and abrupt landing. With a grunt, the exit ramp descended. Allowing his friends to exit the vessel first, Zuko peered back behind him, staring curiously at the cloud-shrouded water once again. If she had ever made it to that point, that creeping edge, Zuko questioned to himself, would Azula be lured into jumping in and ending her life before even considering going back? Would she surrender herself to such a death almost similar to a sacrifice by flame? Would she hesitate at the embankment, and ponder the purpose of her choice, or, would she jump right in and get it over with before more scars of her shame could be inflicted?

"Zuko?"

Mai's plain voice jolted the Firelord back into reality. He stepped off the ramp in a timid gait. In a way, the old warship was a model of safety, like a protective womb. Walking down the inclined plane and venturing into the Boiling Rock was like entering the world of looming danger. Zuko took a breath, and put the comparison behind him, finally making his way to his wife's side.

"Is something wrong, Zuko?" Firelady Mai asked, though the question came out more like a statement. Her tone was devoid of sympathy; the reason for them being here was on Zuko's head, and she had decided quickly to avoid concealing her blame on him.

"Nothing," he uneasily replied, ignoring the blank woman's lack of concern as he assumed walking ahead of her. His allies followed. "It's just… Azula. Hurt somehow."

"Stop thinking about it. Let my uncle explain it."

Mai's insensitivity –for someone who had once labeled the dispossessed princess as a friend –was implausible. The cutting stoicism she used sent him reeling into his blinded childhood, back in the days when their camaraderie was still going strong. Azula's anguish –though his understanding of it was rather limited in his youth –had never bothered Zuko before. He remembered being small and feeling an air of resentment resonate off of her (a black aura, Ty Lee called it once; an indicator of some internal, long-term sense of blame) when their mother was around. But because he was Mother's favorite –or, so he assumed –he reveled in her anger and thought nothing of it. Now, however, the pain Azula was experiencing was physical. Visible. Real. Not of the mind.

Eventually, though it had happened in an indiscernible blur to Zuko, the group reached the warden's office. Now realizing how close he was to realizing the truth, the Firelord anxiously rapped upon the ornate door that stood between them. Almost like the piercing, penetrating sound the pipelines in Azula's solitary cell made when stale water ran through them, the hinges on the door shrieked on an uncomfortably high note.

From inside the room, Zuko saw the warden scribbling notes on a piece of parchment at his desk. His solid expression of concentration melted at the instant he caught sight of his niece. The hefty, but no less muscular man dabbed the ink brush he had been writing with at the rim of a cup. The liquid dribbled down into the mouth of the clay mug and the black paint inside rippled upon being disturbed.

He stood, ready to warmly embrace Mai, but Zuko –anxious to know what awaited him in the prison hall –stepped between them. He flashed the scroll the warden had sent not a few hours ago.

"How is she? What happened?"

"She's… stable," the warden hesitantly answered, stressing the word, _stable _with a weighty sigh. His tone suggested he had been through a lot in the past few hours, and would have much rather eased his troubles off by hugging his niece. "Now, at least. She won't tell me what happened to her –not without spiraling into a depression. She's been sedated, but the meds are soon to wear off."

"What happened?" Zuko repeated in a vicious snap. "You said you found blood in her cell? Her blood?"

"Her blood, yes…" Perspiration appeared at the warden's forehead. "We found Princess Azula bleeding… vaginally."

If air had the precision to act on cue, it knew that this was the exact moment to chill to a peculiar cold. Like a cooler left open to exhale its frosty breath, the air swirled about, touching all in the room into feeling an uncomforting nervousness. Zuko, though trapped in stunned silence, caught the warden as he suffered a hard swallow. He shared the same uneasiness that quieted the whole crew. Not a hint of perversion had struck his tone. Though he loathed the ex-princess with every fiber of his being, his voice had only suggested pity. Perhaps not for Azula entirely, but for Zuko.

Or, for his prison's record…

"This," he said, ending the spell of silence, "is the only record of rape in the history of this prison. Our male and female prisoners have existed together since this penitentiary was founded, but never have we had a rape situation."

"You know this was a rape?" Zuko prodded, folding the scroll and tying its ribbon back upon it. "What evidence do you have?"

The warden fumbled to find words to support his claim, despite being solidly assured that the former sovereign had been sexually assaulted.

"Well…" he struggled, "we did detect the presence of semen within the confines of her cell. Having had no contact with anyone that would suggest a consensual encounter, we are construing this act as a rape."

"Any signs of a struggle?" This came from Mai, though her question seemed one-sided more than anything. She wanted facts –not a sympathy party for her sister-in-law.

"Her clothes were strewn about, and, upon being examined, my nurses discovered bite marks to her breasts, along with significant vaginal tearing that would confirm our theory of a rape. After refusing treatment, we drugged her and sewed her wounds up. She experienced rather severe tearing, and one particular bite on her left breast required a few stitches. We also noticed a rather nasty bump to the back of her head, but it wasn't brutal enough to require treatment. The rapist must have pulled at her hair, for we found some loose strands on the floor."

"Enough, Uncle," Mai interjected. There was more than one victim than just Azula, and Mai was sure to capitalize on that crucial fact. "What of the murdered guard? You said he was stabbed, right?"

The warden nodded, his expression revealing relief to stray from the previous subject of the princess' rape. He took a step backward, and pressed the backs of his beefy legs against the cool wood of his desk. He rested his palms on the table.

"He was stabbed in the neck," he claimed quickly, gesturing a now upturned palm into the air. "Obviously, the murderer took advantage of the weak area of the guard's armor, piercing him where his helmet or breastplate couldn't shield him. We know definitively that his killer was a right-handed male, based on the direction in which the wound was inflicted… Though that isn't much to go on…"

The warden continued on about how the perpetrator was able to both penetrate and escape the prison. Zuko caught him mentioning the possibility that the murder and rape were staged, and that that there was the slight chance that there were guards involved. But, after mentioning that, Sokka immediately broke in and warned the warden that infiltrating the Boiling Rock was an easy task. The Water Tribesman had experience in that area.

"You said the man took the keys and left with them," the Firelord debated, interrupting the warden from rebutting Sokka's claim with accounts between the distinction of past and present security measures. "What? Does that mean he has the opportunity to return and hurt my sister again?"

"I doubt he would even try. Why would he even need to? He made his point clear to her, whatever it was."

"But, if he _does_ come back to assault her again," Katara asked, restraining herself from using the term, _rape_, to describe what had transpired in the prison a few hours ago, "isn't there a chance he could get her –"

"Pregnant?" The warden practically spat out the word, his face contorting with disgust. "Azula has no chance at a pregnancy whatsoever –in this instance or any hereafter. In her three years here in this facility, she has starved herself to the point where ovulation is rare, making conception impossible. Her menstrual cycle is so minute that we doubt its occurrence at all now. Adding to that, being as malnourished as she is making herself out to be, her body wouldn't even be able to support or even tolerate a pregnancy. I assure you, milord, you don't have to worry about your sister in that aspect. She will not conceive."

"And you're sure of this?" Zuko queried, his tone suggesting a lack of faith in such a bold proposition on the warden's behalf.

"Yes, I'm quite sure she isn't –"

"As Firelord, I request that you thoroughly monitor her for at least a month, just to make certain she doesn't become pregnant. If it all reveals nothing, then I will believe you."

"Meaning, you want us to watch for a miscarriage, because I doubt she'll even be able to keep a baby for that extent of time –"

"Meaning, I want you to watch for the presence of a baby, alive or otherwise."

Mai, vexed by Zuko's outright distrust of her uncle's take on the situation, growled, "Zuko, stop this. My uncle's right. There isn't going to be a child."

This last sentence came from her with an indication of anguish. An ulterior emotion, this was. Perhaps she assumed pity for even the thought of a baby born to the princess. A scorned child that had not a chance in this world if it actually existed. Mai understood deeply that the spirits were bashing the princess with punishments –punishments she deserved without question –and a baby was a far cry from a punishment. Why would they even consider her a candidate for such a blessing? It was just, simply, an impossible notion.

"I don't care," Zuko muttered. He, too, shared whatever anguish it was that they were concealing. "I just want my sister to receive the care that she needs."

"And she will, I assure you," the warden barked. "Now, would you be interested in getting a few words out of her? _Alone… _Without your mother present to set her off?"

"What good would that do? You just said you couldn't even –"

"You want proof of the princess' rape, or not? I feel she'd be more obligated to speak to family about it than strangers. Just –as I warned –keep your mother out of sight and earshot. We can't afford to have Azula digress further; you understand."

The warden wriggled himself upright, and stepped past his niece and the Firelord. He cast a glare at Zuko, one of urgency, one that read a curt and unabashed, _let's get this over with so I can put this behind me and polish the nick in my record_. Indeed, Zuko sneered, there was no denying the warden's purpose. This break-in was one of only two mistakes made at the Boiling Rock on his part, and, as he had put it a distant three years ago, he would have much rather jumped into the scorching lake that surrounded this prison than allow his pride and drive for perfection to falter. Zuko mused smugly as he followed the stout, middle-aged man if he would actually dare do it, just step lively and pounce into the flame-licked lake. But, in thinking that, the Firelord was brought back to his dishonorable quandary at the ramp of his war vessel. Was the warden as narrow-minded as Azula? To them, was death the greatest and easiest and most attainable escape from shame? Both keeper and prisoner carried their scars, their _nicks_; both had failed in duty and purpose in their own ways. Were both really so mesmerized by the prize of perfection that neither could see that death –suicide, no less –was no token to glory? Zuko himself had no chance to gather his answer before the warden halted and fumbled with a lock. The Firelord gazed ahead, finding himself suddenly a long stretch away from his former location. Entranced by thought, Zuko had blindly negotiated two levels of stairway and several turns down twisted corridors. Now, he was in front of what looked like the entrance to a locked interrogation room adjacent to the prison's linked mental institution.

The old door's clacking lock reverberated. The warden stepped aside, and allowed the Firelord to pass.

"I caution you," he said gruffly, "to be as neutral as possible. Don't play with pity and don't be pushy. You'll only infuriate her more."

Zuko shuffled past, surprised by the absolute whiteness of the room within. It shimmered almost, with that clean, asylum look. There, in the center, strapped to a chair, was Azula, inattentive eyes staring at a terribly scratched wood table in front of her. She did not seem to have the slightest clue of Zuko's intrusion.

"Azula, I –"

Azula started, but receded after seeing just who it was in the room with her. She struggled against her restraints like a trapped beast, dishonest eyes darting every which way. Patiently, the Firelord watched this inward war wage in his sister, and after a few tense minutes the former princess settled out of tired frustration. She became flaccid in her chair, worn and totally defeated by the events of the last few hours.

"The doctors say I should pay you no heed," she slurred, the drugs flooding through her still evident, "and you will go away."

Zuko harrumphed in disagreement. She certainly had not taken this advice when she burned Ursa a couple hours ago. No, she had thought her mother a figment, one that needed to be swiftly expunged. Azula had paid her mother significant heed, and burned her face in the process. But his poor sister was still under the influence of the medicines the doctors had used to settle her down; these words were not hers to believe.

"I'm real, Azula." Zuko was testing the water with this statement, knowing that conflicting Azula often incensed her beyond a rational level.

Her pupils quivered upward until they nervously managed to level with his. Sweat dribbled down her brow, and she almost appeared feverish, but Firelord Zuko was sure the drugs were to blame.

"I'm so sorry about what happened to you, Azula," he consoled after seeing that his previous declaration had not caused the whole establishment to burn down. "I want to help, but –"

"What do you know?" Azula barked with false toughness. Like her drug-ravaged body that quivered with her every move, her voice trembled too.

Zuko considered this, thinking back to what the warden had warned him about in the minutes prior. Pity was not an option, but how could the old man expect him to be harsh in the face of the fact that there was a perpetrator loose who had taken advantage of his younger sibling's frailty and raped her?

"I know," he said, "that a man snuck into the prison and killed a guard."

The Firelord was no expert on the human psyche, much less an expert on madness; he honestly had no idea when, or even how, to rightfully push the rape into the conversation without losing Azula's cooperation. And he was well aware her desire to cooperate with him was probably quite low, considering their shared past. He had to put it out there, that he had the upper hand, and at the same time establish her trust.

Zuko gave it a direct shot. "He raped you," he divulged. "The warden told me."

Azula admitted a sharp gasp, like a sound one would make after swiftly being stabbed. A sound of realization that doom was imminent. Shock caught her teeth in a tight clench.

She surged forward, but remained trapped to her seat, slurring furiously, "Then you know nothing! You know nothing!"

Zuko's sister was not even remotely in her right mind. The warden was a fool to order her drugged to the point of aggression, and even greater a fool to expect her to admit to anything under such an influence.

But he had no time to dawdle. This rogue man was out there, capable of rape and murder. Zuko had no desire to keep such a man on the run for long, for fear that he would grow bold and strike again –here or elsewhere.

"Please, Azula," he soothed, revealing his hands in submission. Giving Azula the upper hand was the only tool he had now to get a word out of her. Perhaps handing his dominance to her would help her see through the haze she was under. "Tell me what you know. We can get him, and bring him to justice for hurting you. You know more about him than anyone right now."

To this, Azula's erratic motions stalled, and she peered with bloodshot eyes at her brother in a most depressive, drawn scowl. But as quickly as this expression had appeared on her countenance, it shifted, unveiling a clever but still somewhat weak smile in its wake. Zuko felt a panicked sink in his chest. He had given up his dominance, and the Firelord honestly had no clue as to how Azula would use that against him.

He tensed as he saw her breathe inward, ready to speak.

She told him, "You need me to tell you something… But what do I earn in return for this favor, Zuzu?"

How stirring it was to see her go from tormented to intimidating in a matter of seconds, Zuko thought to himself. Her madness, and the influence of all that was flooding through her system, drove his sister to some disturbing states of mind, and it ticked at him that he had not seen this coming when he withdrew his authority.

"I can give you the assurance that you will not be taken advantage of again like that, Azula," Zuko offered. "And I can make sure you are cared for in the time being and your wounds are treated."

"That isn't enough," the scathing woman barked. "My wounds are already treated. My care is in my own hands, and, I assure you, I will not reveal his name for someone like you. Someone as meek as you would only deal him mercy."

The Firelord's nostrils flared. So many times over the years had his sister's conniving words incensed him; this time was no different.

He had to defend himself.

"You're already giving him mercy by keeping your mouth shut!" he shouted, red, flared hands rising in justification. He felt the rush of his abysmal past cloud over him like a storm brewing in, all that he had worked for in his banishment and all the trials he had endured to reach the point that he was at now in his life. "And I am no weak ruler, Azula! I'm proving to be doing a much better job than you are right now! You couldn't even maintain yourself in the short while that the throne was yours!"

Azula recoiled in her chair. Stunned, she lowered her head, her uneven, dirty hair feathering her face in bar-like stripes. She whispered, slow, her own fury building, "You are just like Mother. Believing me mad when I am sane.

"You think I'm a monster too."

In an instant, the quiet reserve the former sovereign had used in her tone erupted into a boisterous rage. She clenched her fists and heaved forward, fighting the binds along her wrists. Though her resistance kept her rooted to her cuffs, she struggled all the harder, flinging herself as wildly as she could manage, much to the chair's voiceless protest. The chair itself, somewhat light in weight even to someone as physically weak as Azula, levitated ever-so-slightly as she forced a shrill moan between her lips.

"You think I'm a monster too, don't you, Zuzu? You're not real! You're not here!"

A swirl of blue flame managed to flicker from her mouth. "I won't let you know his name! You know nothing! Nothing!"

With a deep breath, the churning cerulean flame Azula had harbored grew tremendous in size, and she released it, feeling her body shake in convulsed shock. The pressure she had been putting on the chair she sat in finally sent it flying backwards, and in a cracking thud, its back made hard contact with the floor.

So, too, did Azula's raven head, and like a dark blanket casting itself over her eyes, she felt her world finally go black…


End file.
